


after

by zhuzhubi



Series: the fall and the climb [3]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Luke is a good friend, Past Drug Addiction, Post-Prison, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Spencer actually has ptsd that doesnt just disappear, Spoilers, and the team actually helps him heal, season 13 cases arent mentioned, through 13.2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:00:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25136566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhuzhubi/pseuds/zhuzhubi
Summary: You’re free now, but it still isn’t over. There’s another battle ahead, and now the monsters are inside you, but it doesn’t make them less real.(Your friends give you a sword and shield, and stand alongside you as you fend them off.)
Series: the fall and the climb [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819264
Comments: 12
Kudos: 60





	after

**Author's Note:**

> also on tumblr at zhuzhubii, if you prefer
> 
> the final part!

The six-week mandated leave is still not really a break. There’s mandated therapy and psych evals as they decide if they want to keep you or not -

_It should be me deciding to keep them or not. The bureau wouldn’t have cared if I never got out. They refused to represent me, barely let my team help me_

\- and memory care facilities to see. There’s a nice private home not too far away with an opening you’ve decided on for your mother, and she’ll be moving there soon. It’s definitely pricey, but insurance helps out a little and you can afford it just barely as long as you get reinstated relatively quickly. And if not, you can pick up the slack tutoring or -

_Counting cards. Bennington is expensive, and you’re from Vegas. The shoddier casinos don’t care how baby-faced you are because a friend from CalTech printed a high-quality fake for you. Blackjack pays better, but they don’t watch the poker tables as closely for counters. That’s your gamble - poker or blackjack today? - not the money. Every bet is calculated and you always go home in the green. You visit casinos according to an algorithm you wrote - you named it “strategy for minimizing risk of getting caught winning too much.”_

_Eventually, many of them grow suspicious anyway and throw you out, tell you to stay away. But they never have any evidence, your brain makes it easy like that, and can’t charge you with anything. You take your money and go quietly_

\- something. Your mother has forgotten those scary things that happened when she was with Lindsey, and for once you’re grateful she lives just left of reality and forgets _scary things_ so easily. It always hurt so much to see her in pain -

_Mom! Put that down!_

_They’re coming, Spencer, they’re coming! Go hide in the closet. I’ll protect you, baby, just go hide. They’ll take you away from me if you don’t go hide!_

_Mom, please! I promise no one is coming, just put it down, please, Mom please -_

_Hide in the closet, Spencer! I’ll come get you once it’s safe, just stay in there until I say it’s safe._

_Why’s it so cold outside, isn’t it summer?_

_It’s January, Mom._

_It’s nice out, we should go for a walk._

_Not today, baby, I’m tired. Let me sleep._

_Just for a little while, Mom, just around the block_

_I’m so tired, baby. Maybe we can go tomorrow if I’m feeling better, okay? I love you, baby, but I just need to sleep._

\- whether it was the frantic bouts of paranoia, or the confusion, or the anhedonia that kept her in bed for weeks at a time. You love her as she is, but you wish she was well. So that she wouldn’t hurt, but also, selfishly, so that she could be more of a mom to you.

It reminds you of the bullies, of coming home wishing for her comfort - for the cuddles and her raspy reading voice - and finding her in the midst of an episode again. Now you are grown, but you are hurting and you want to lie in bed with your mother while she reads poems out loud and runs her fingers through your hair. 

You want this, but there are months of missed bills to catch up on, meetings with doctors to discuss her care and medical paperwork, and dealing with the bureau on top of it all. You feel like she has fewer bouts of clarity than she had before you went away, and most of the time now your mother only adds to your fear and stress instead of alleviating it. 

You drag your own fingers through your hair and mutter poems under your breath while you rock desperately back and forth, trying to find some comfort, choking down panic on the bathroom floor -

_You find yourself thinking about sexual relief - something you’d been deprived of for the months in prison - and try to_ take care of it _in the shower one morning. You’ve only just stroked yourself to erection when the thought of who else’s hands have touched you like that invades your mind, and your breath falters not from pleasure, but panic._

(Spencer it’s okay, you want this you want this and it sounds like Maeve but it’s not Maeve and you shouldn’t be thinking about Maeve like that anyway because she’s gone she’s gone) 

_You catch your breath and try to continue -_ I can get past this, _you think with conviction_ , I will not allow her to stop me from doing this _\- but the panic returns, and it returns every time._

_The neighbors are watching some movie with the volume cranked up too high. Normally it wouldn’t bother you - it’s the weekend and you won’t sleep this early, besides - but there’s this_ sound _that comes through the walls every so often, it’s a buzzer or an alarm or something, and it sounds just like the one at Milburn._

_Every time it crashes through the walls you jump, look over your shoulder, check the whole apartment for Shaw’s men even though you know they aren’t there. And each time, it becomes more and more real for you - you start to see a cage built to hold a man with metal bars keeping you locked in, locked in with those men who want to hurt you._

_Mom doesn’t seem to notice, but you can tell you’re scaring the night nurse. So you end up hiding in the bathroom where no one can see, trying and failing to calm yourself because they are coming for you, you know they are, and that thought only drives you further into a tailspin because you know they can’t get you here so the thought is irrational and_ oh god oh god you sound like your mother

\- you want your mom to provide those comforts for you, but even if she’s lucid right now she’s moved into the care home and they’ve told you not to visit - 

_she’s not settled just yet and she’ll only beg for you to take her home, and grow more upset when you don’t. Don’t worry, Dr. Reid, we’re taking good care of her. We’ll contact you straight away once she’s better adjusted_

\- so you’re alone in your apartment. By the time the panic subsides you’re so exhausted you contemplate just sleeping on the tiled floor. But your bad knee won’t appreciate that, and physical pain makes the cravings worse and _god knows I don’t need that right now._ So you grasp the countertop and drag your sweaty body upright. Your face is unshaven and clammy and pallid, your hair a tangled mess. You can’t look yourself in the eye, so you plod over to the bed and pretend you’ll sleep through the night, that you won’t awaken in terror and confusion thinking you’re still locked away - that being released was the dream, not your continued imprisonment. 

_I just need to sleep for a bit,_ you lie to yourself, _I’ll feel better in the morning_.

…

You are a master of misdirection and telling people what they want to hear, and you successfully convince the bureau reinstating you six weeks after prison is a good idea -

_Why wouldn’t it be? I’m fine now. I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine_

\- though there is the stipulation that you take 30 days off for every 100 you spend in the field. Obviously, they have their doubts about your _okayness,_ but at least you got your job back. To be honest, you also worry you might _overreact_ , and you wonder if knowing that and going back to work anyway makes you irresponsible. 

But you cannot cannot be home with your thoughts -

_And your trauma and your (now) irrational fears and your cravings for a habit you thought you’d kicked years ago. You’ve dragged yourself to NA a couple of times, listening to the others and fingering the sobriety coin you no longer feel you deserve (does it count if it was non-consensual? If you got overpowered -_ surprised _, you correct yourself,_ blitz attacked _\- by a girl half your size and shot up against your will?), unable to speak, or even to make eye-contact with anyone_

\- any longer. You need this work and how all-consuming it is. When you are working, there is no time to dwell on those other things, and you know you are running away again, that instead of burying your problems in drugs, you’re burying them in work -

_And really, isn’t this work a kind of addiction too? The high is_ catching the unsub saving the victim _, and the unsubs are the drug-cookers, and the bureau is the dealer. Some of us walk away (recover), and some of us stay hooked (that one’s obvious)._

_Hotch, Rossi, Gideon. They all lost wives and children because they couldn’t walk away. Unsubs and victims and cases filled their minds until they came crawling back. Hotch had to be forced away in order to give it up. Rossi consulted on cases even when he was “retired,” moved to Los Angeles for a while to chase a killer._

_In the end, Gideon couldn’t leave that last case alone, went back without the support of a team he’d grown used to (lost tolerance). Died in his own home like a junkie who cleaned up for a while, then shot up with their old dose only to find that last high burning them from the inside out because their body just couldn’t take it anymore_

\- and you know all too well that burying your problems -

_Grab a shovel._

_Dig, boy._

_It was the booze and heroin that did him in._

\- won’t make them go away.

But it’s good enough for now.

…

It feels good when Emily tells you she trusts you, that she knows the _limb will not break._

You needed to hear that. You needed to hear that because you’re not so sure yourself -

_One night, real late, you’re sitting at home and you can’t be alone anymore. You have an hour, hour-and-a-half before you give in, and you need to make yourself call someone before that happens._

_You know that so many people love you and want to help you and would come in a heartbeat, but it is_ so hard _to reach out._

_Too many of them would know_ why _you needed someone to come and just sit with you, and you can’t deal with that right now, with the shame that comes when people_ know _. Sympathetic glances,_ you don’t have to be ashamed of this, Spencer, you called, you asked for help this time and that’s okay I want you to call when you feel like this, I’m proud of you for calling instead of giving in.

_That leaves Tara, Luke, and Matt._

_(First names, cravings really get you into NA mode like that. Hi, I’m Spencer and I...I don’t know what I am. Hi, I’m Spencer and I had a...problem? With Dilaudid?_

_Hi, I’m Spencer and I realized using all these other words for the issue is my way of telling myself it wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t a big deal, that I was fine and I could’ve stopped if I wanted to. I realized I need to say it._

_My name is Spencer, and I’m an addict._

_It was hydromorphone - brand name: Dilaudid. I wasn’t a casual junkie - I took it every day, every 8 to 12 hours no matter where I was, for months. I obtained it illegally. At one point I blew a vein in my arm and got scared of getting caught, so I started injecting in places that were easier to hide. I snapped at my friends when they tried to help because I didn’t think I was_ ready _to stop._

_And when I finally realized I would_ never _be ready to stop, I bit the bullet and did it anyway. I wanted to go cold, but I used a fake name and got checked out at a walk-in first - just in case. I was honest with her, with the doctor,_ how often how much for how long _. I thought she’d say, you know,_ of course I can’t medically recommend it, but in all likelihood you’ll be very uncomfortable for the withdrawal period and fine in the end. _That’s not what she said. She said_ you’re considerably underweight and your vitals aren’t as strong as I’d like them to be. I’d never medically recommend stopping any substance cold turkey, but from the dosage you’ve admitted to using there are serious risks to your health, and I’d strongly urge you to check yourself into a detox program.

_I’m a_ graduate chemist _. I don’t know how I deluded myself into believing it wasn’t as bad as it was._

_In the end, I cleaned up alone. I did some research and calculated what dosage I needed to get down to before stopping wasn’t unreasonably risky. Before I decided to get clean I told myself using the drugs was okay because I was in pain, and painkillers are for pain, right? There was shame, but it was never as strong as while I tapered, all the while going to work and hiding my hands in my pockets because I perpetually had the shakes._

_I fucked up so bad it wasn’t_ safe _for me to just stop, even when I wanted to be done with the drugs, and that shame is what I’m trying to downplay by avoiding the word_ addict _)_

_You barely know Matt, and honestly, you fear he’d rat you out for having a drug problem._

_You love Tara, but she’s a trained psychologist - for this type of problem, not just the unsub-y stuff - and you can’t deal with that right now either._

_Luke it is._

_You make the call, and he picks up_ (you’re all used to getting calls at odd hours so it’s not surprising, not really, but it feels good that he picked up for you in the middle of the night). _You tell him you don’t want to be alone, and ask him to please come if it’s not too much trouble?_

_He says he’ll be there in 15 even though he lives 20 minutes away. He asks you if you need him to stay on the line and you tell him you don’t, that you’ll call him back if you change your mind._

_When he arrives, he can tell you don’t want to talk. He sits next to you on the couch in silence all night, no platitudes or sympathy or misplaced pride, and it is exactly what you needed. You want to thank him for coming, for giving up his sleep to sit next to you while you stare at the coffee table because all you can think about is getting high and how he is here to make sure you won’t because you don’t trust yourself, but you can’t make yourself speak._

_He seems to know - that you are thankful, that is (maybe about the other thing too, but you don’t want to think about that)._

_There will be more nights like this, and he will continue to come when you call him (and sometimes when you don’t, but he can just tell you need it). Someday, when you’re a bit better, you two will start to talk instead of sitting in silence._

_You’re not there yet, but one day, many many months down the line, you’ll find the courage to thank him for this first time - just as a passing comment - and he’ll know how much it meant to you_

\- When Emily tells you she arranged seminars so you can teach during your mandated breaks, you’ll feel something that reminds you of happiness. 

It was so thoughtful of her, and so fitting too. It reminds you of how long you’ve known her, that she's seen you at your worst _both times_ and still sees the good in you, and loves you no less. And you’re grateful to know you have something to do during those off times because you need to be occupied, and while you’re sure you could have come up with something on your own, it’s nice that you don’t have to. Deciding things is so much harder now when almost everything was decided for you for so long.

You’re not back at _able to feel joy and happiness about good happenings rather than just relief,_ but for the first time since coming back you can see yourself getting there one day. 

…

You’ve seen Henry a few times since, but just when you stop by JJ’s to -

_reassure him that you still love him._

_No, I know you do,_ of course _I know you do. I know it's been hard. Just stop by so he can see you, so he knows you’re still here_

\- drop off paperwork. 

You love him -

_and Michael, too. So much that your heart aches when you realize he doesn’t really recognize you anymore_

\- so so much. And that’s why you feel like you should stay away. After all those things you did, all those horrible awful things _you monster you monster_ you did it feels like you’d be corrupting them somehow. Letting all that darkness -

_I would have killed her with my bare hands. What kind of a man does that make me, that I couldn’t control my anger? I almost killed someone because I was_ angry

\- rub off on them where they are so _good_ and so _pure_ and so _perfect._

You’re going over for dinner. You used to go all the time before, but this is the first time since. And you’re not sure how it will be, if you’ll still know how to play with the boys and make them happy and see them smile. You don’t want them to be sad if you can’t smile back. 

You go inside and you’re nervous and stiff and _what if I can’t do this_ at first. You sit awkwardly at the table and it feels like -

_eating lunch under the hot Pasadena sun. You’re sitting with some other PhD students and they’re all nice and like hearing what you have to say in terms of research and studying, but they’re all so much older than you. They’re so much older, and they know how to talk to each other, and you’re not getting beat up anymore but you still feel like an outsider. Like you don’t belong, and you don’t know what to say to them, and they keep talking to each other and you’re just_ watching watching watching _like monkey in the middle and you’re in the middle, never quite able to reach the ball_

\- you don’t really know what to say. But then Henry starts chattering excitedly about -

_volcanoes in school, isn’t that cool Uncle Spence? And my friend Johnny’s mom gave him an extra cookie in his lunch for me today even though we aren’t supposed to share food, isn’t she nice Uncle Spence?_

\- the same things he always chatters to you about. And after dinner you sit on the floor with the boys and teach them card tricks (or, you teach Henry. Michael just sits and watches with the awe and fascination of a child) and it’s like you never left -

_never got taken away, you mean_

\- You feel at home, and you sometimes resent how JJ always expects you to be so resilient -

_She wants me to forgive her, just like that? She’s mad at me for not forgiving her? How dare she, she let me suffer, how dare she? She lied, she lied, she’s a liar_

\- but you admit she was right this time. 

…

When you finally go to visit the Morgans in Chicago, Hank is just as happy to see you as Henry always is, even though (or perhaps because) he’s still just a baby. He thinks you can do _real magic_ with the truly innocent amazement and wonder only a child has. 

Morgan - 

_that is, Derek Morgan. There are more Morgans now, wow, you really never thought you’d see the day_

\- pats you on the back and says _you did good, kid_ and for some reason that is what finally gets you to let go and burst into sobs -

_There was a time when you wouldn’t have dared cry in front of Morgan - any of your teammates, really, but him in particular. He reminds you a little too much of being shoved into lockers and slammed into walls (and stripped and tied up- that memory bites at your ankles a little too much, so you shove it down down down), and you are constantly aware of how much bigger than you he is._

_He definitely didn’t like you at first (felt threatened by your intelligence, maybe, felt you didn’t deserve to be there, didn’t think you’d worked for it) and the teasing wasn’t teasing at first; it was workplace bullying. And it made you feel as_ other _as you’d felt your whole life._

_But then you made a perfect kill shot under pressure, you walked unarmed onto a train and faced a man with two guns too many and a faltering grasp on reality, you stepped alone toward a man with a bomb and tried so hard to talk him down, you fed the team clues drugged out of your mind and looking down the barrel of a gun._

_And it wasn’t that you proved yourself to him somehow by doing these things. It was more so that they showed strength and bravery in a way he understood. They taught him -_ you _taught him - that bravery comes in all shapes and sizes; it’s not always kicking down doors and running after suspects and facing down unsubs. And_ he _taught_ you _that big muscular guys have hearts too, and they aren’t always out to get’cha. You two come to understand each other, and it is the first time you and a “jock-type” are on the same side._

_The teasing becomes just that - teasing - a not a way for him to assert dominance over you. You come to realize it’s his way of saying_ I love you _, so you start to open up to him. You tell him things you’ve never told anyone before, and it’s your way of saying_ I love you _back._

_He doesn’t always say the right things when you’re hurting, but no one can be right all the time (not even you). And anyway, you don’t need him to always say the right thing, you need him to listen and to try his best. You need him to_ be there _, like so many people haven’t been in your life, and he stays,_ he stays _._

\- He rubs his hand over your back and cradles the back of your head -

_You used to hate being touched by anyone except your mother, but hugs and fist-bumps and playful slaps to the arm from these people you love so deeply have started to change your mind._

\- and say _let it out, just let it out_ , and like some cliche it makes you cry harder. 

The few days you spend with the Morgans are so cathartic in a way you never imagined they would be. It is _amazing_ spending time with your family where cases never come up, and there is no ever-present fear of getting a call. You know it’s not time yet for you to leave the job, but you finally understand why Morgan _did_ -

_JJ has kids and Will loves her and they make it work. Why couldn’t Morgan stay too? Why did he have to go, why is he abandoning us, why_

\- He didn’t walk _away_ from his family, but _toward_ it.

…

You think, _this morning is one of great success._

It seems absurd that a man in his thirties is viewing _successfully stimulating myself to orgasm_ as such an achievement, but after so much time spent panicking at the thought of touching your own genitals, and being afraid of the panic, and afraid you’d spend the rest of your life unable to experience sexual pleasure (and relieve certain _frustrations_ ), it feels like an achievement - finally starting to move past the mental block being touched had created. You’re proud of yourself. 

And, indeed, the success relieved a great deal of, shall we say _tension_ , which had been building for quite some time, and everyone comments on your cheerful demeanor as they trickle into the bull-pen for work. This sparks a great deal of embarrassment on your part, though you try very hard to conceal it - no matter how proud of yourself you are, you’re a very private person and have no intention of letting anyone find out about your, um, _achievement_.

(and not the donut you consumed - _this calls for celebration! Screw eating healthy, treat yourself!_ \- either)

…

Rushing into the conference room for a _middle-of-the-night emergency_ case, your teammates - _your family_ \- take a moment to smile at you before Garcia presents, and it’s such a small thing, but it makes you feel like you _belong_ -

_The first time you felt like you belonged at the BAU was over a year into your time on the team. It was before you and Morgan truly trusted each other, but after Elle came along. She always had such an easy acceptance of you, and she never thought you were too nerdy or too awkward or too gangly (or too_ much) _. Here was this woman who liked you as you were, not in spite of it. And it made you feel like maybe I’ll find someone who loves me after all._

_You never felt romantically for Elle_

_(although you think you could have, if the circumstances had been different. If she hadn’t been your coworker. Since you’ve realized you are indeed lovable, you’ve always imagined your romantic partner as someone completely separate from work, someone to protect from the worst of humanity, someone who is untainted by the horrors you see every day. So you never even considered it until she was already gone, and she’d asked for a clean break. You think Elle felt the same way, that if the job didn’t keep out of her private life, it would drive her insane. She was right about that, in the end)_

_but she made you feel like someone, someday, would feel romantically for you, and you’d never felt like that before. Not even preparing for that “date” with JJ, and especially not when it turned out she’d brought Garcia along. You were more embarrassed about that than upset, though, because you weren’t actually interested in JJ. More than anything, you went along with the “date” to appease Gideon, and because you felt obligated._

_It was the ease of Elle’s acceptance that made you feel that_ belonging _for the first time, and even now that she’s moved on you still feel it._

\- at some point in the chaos that’s been your life for the past (too many) months, that feeling of belonging left. But it’s back now, and you’re not gonna let it go again. 

…

There comes a day when you wake up and feel content and happy and _good good good_ and realize you haven’t had a flashback in months, haven’t craved that artificial euphoria in just as long. 

You tell yourself _this is recovery_ and it doesn’t feel resigned -

_Like this_ great big horrible thing _happened to you and now you have to deal with it, and it’s so hard and_ it sucks it sucks it sucks _but you’ve gotta do it_

\- anymore. It feels like it might be a good thing. Yeah, that _great big horrible thing_ happened to you and now you have to deal with it, but it isn’t so bad. 

The bad days aren’t as bad as they once were, and they don’t come nearly as often. You’re sleeping much better now, too, so you actually have the energy to deal with it when they _do_ come (which they do, and you’re not ashamed of that). And if you are too tired, or even if you aren’t, you have a friend who’ll sit on the couch and do nothing with you at any time of day - in silence, and for hours, if that’s what you need - and three little boys who love magic tricks and love you _unabashedly and unconditionally_ the way only small children can. 

You have a team who knows what sets you off - what sends you careening back there _back in that cage with those men who want to kill you_ \- and tries to protect you from those things when they can, and knows how to bring you back when you get lost anyway and can’t stumble home on your own. 

You have a mother who is _still here_ and loves you always from the heart, even when her head doesn’t know it.

There are times when you wish everything could go back to how it was before, when you resent this man you are now and how different he is from who you were before. But you’re finding it much easier not to dwell on the things you can’t change, and you think instead about the things you _want_ to stay the same - 

_Your big heart, and your love for magic. A godfather three times over_

_The fact that you are, and always will be, my little brother_

_The events that brought best friends together were 500 years in the making_

_How much you care about people, and how much you will fight for your famiglia_

_Your ability to forgive and how deeply you love; how deeply you feel loss - know that your grief isn’t always a bad thing_

_My Junior G-Man, Boy Genius, beloved Halloween enthusiast and fellow Whovian_

_Pretty boy_

_Spence_

_His favorite profiler_

_Dr. Joseph Bell_

_You wanted to be a tightrope walker_

_In the end, the practical joke score was 5:6 - to Reid_

_(What’s the third thing?) I’m proud of you_

\- these are the things you want to carry with you, and if that means you have to drag the dark stuff along too, _so be it_. You will continue to live and love, and others will continue to live and love _you_. 

It’s not always easy, but it’s not always hard either. Life finds a new normal. For a while, that normal was _not so good_. Now, you’re comfortable with it. You embrace it like an old friend, tell it _you’ve tried to ruin me so many times, but HA you never have. I win. This time, I win._

And life says back and _so you do, so you do._


End file.
